In 1883, Jackson Koehler, part of a long-time family brewing tradition, purchased the Eagle brewing complex in Erie, Pennsylvania. By 1895, he and his workers were producing 30,000 barrels of beer annually.

Charles Koehler owned an Erie brewery until his death in 1869, when his sons, Fred, Louis, and Jackson struck out on their own. Fred brewed lager at the corner of 26th and Holland Streets. Louis’s City Bottling Works, 1311 State Street, produced soft drinks—ginger ale, birch beer, pear cider, mineral water—as well as beer.

In 1899, the brewery, which had been constructed in 1855, was known as the Jackson Koehler branch of The Erie Brewing Company. A rathskeller, or basement beer hall, was added in 1936. The site, built of brick in a Germanic/Teutonic style, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, but was demolished in 2006.

In the 1960s, Koehler sought to fight off the dominance of growing national brewers with funny/morbid TV ads featuring the ghost of long-dead Jackson Koehler ruining golf games and otherwise haunting drinkers of beer other than Koehler’s. Each ended with the line “Uncle Jackson’s watching!” and a thunderclap.

Today, the only evidence remaining of Koehler's "Dutch Touch" heritage is in ad posters, beer trays, and coasters.

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